


this awful energy

by dustofwarfare



Series: begin the end [4]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: M/M, Materia, Possibly Dubious Consent, Sephiroth Appreciation Week 2017, Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-23 20:57:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12516416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustofwarfare/pseuds/dustofwarfare
Summary: Sephiroth spreads his arms to his sides, a ready stance only lacking his blade. “Well then. Go on, Cloud. Make me your puppet and see if I dance.”(In which it is Sephiroth's turn to be compelled, and Cloud's turn to enjoy it.)





	this awful energy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sephiroth Appreciation Week 2017, prompt "Power". 
> 
> (Please be advised that this fic does involve the consensual use of mind-control materia)
> 
> title from the halsey song "Control" because all my seph!appreciation week fics will be halsey lyrics???

 

“Mind materia?” Sephiroth stares at it, frowning. He’s going through the list of every materia he knows, and he’s convinced Cloud is making this one up.

“It’s similar to Confu,” says Cloud. “But different.”

Cloud, as ever, is a man of few words – and most of them do nothing when it comes to offering an explanation. He simply slots the materia into a bangle and plays with it, turning it around and around in his hand. “I want something.”

“Obviously.” Sephiroth studies him. Cloud’s been in a mood the last few days; not sullen but withdrawn, distant in a way that has nothing to do with physical location. Thinking too much, perhaps.

“When I gave you the Black Materia,” Cloud says, slowly. “When I handed it over. Nothing has ever felt that good in my life.”

Sephiroth remembers that, of course. The thrill of watching Cloud do what he wanted, all the while knowing how very much Cloud would hate it when he understood the truth of what he’d done. “You were compelled. It’s the natural result of a compulsion, to feel satisfaction when it is complete.”

“It wasn’t just satisfaction.” Cloud glances up at him. His eyes are bright and cold. “It was ecstasy.” The word sounds strange when he says it; flat and monotone where it should be vibrant, sonorous.

“What do you want, Cloud?”

Cloud asked him that same question, once, on the top of a ruined empire. _Sephiroth. What do you want._

“Nothing as dramatic as an interstellar vacation,” says Cloud. “But you probably won’t like it.” He smiles when he clips the bangle on his wrist, but his eyes are still glacial and his smile is icicle-sharp.

That’s not entirely a given. “Sometimes I wonder, Cloud,” Sephiroth says softly, “If anyone else has ever seen you like this.”

“Like what?” Cloud tilts his head, raising his left arm as if he’s going to need to aim the materia, when they both know he won’t.

“So eager to defeat me,” Sephiroth murmurs, thinking of Cloud not in Nibelheim but the Northern Crater, at the end, when they were alone. In the ruins of Midgar, at the center of a storm where nothing existed but their rage. “You may say you are an unwilling hero, my little stormcloud. But I know bloodlust when I see it.”

Sometimes Cloud is so very easy to wound.

Sephiroth spreads his arms to his sides, a ready stance only lacking his blade. “Well then. Go on, Cloud. Make me your puppet and see if I dance.”

***

It doesn’t feel like much, at first.

Sephiroth has been subjected to all kinds of unpleasant status effects over the years; every soldier, enhanced or not, knew what it was to be poisoned, to have their thoughts turn hazy or their vision go dark. The Infantrymen in Wutai were given antidotes and eye drops and Hypers to combat these effects; Sephiroth and the other SOLDIERS had their materia and their specialty armor to take care of it.

But if there is one thing Sephiroth knows, it is what it feels like to not be alone in his head. And that’s what he notices first; a mental weight in the of back his mind that starts pressing against his thoughts. _This is not me._

Cloud isn’t doing anything but watching him, but the materia is glowing softly and the air is thick with tension; they are playing at dangerous things and Sephiroth perhaps should have asked _why now, Cloud? What possessed you to haul this up from that dark well where our past is kept buried deep?_

But he doesn’t ask, and Cloud doesn’t offer, and maybe that is something; a bit of trust stretched between them, fragile spiderwebs turned to silk.

The feeling changes, slowly; from the invasion to a buzzing noise that Sephiroth can hear and doesn’t like, trying to dislodge it like some errant insect taken residence in his ear. The buzzing doesn’t last for long, though, and then he feels…warm. His muscles slowly begin to ease, and his eyes find Cloud and settle there.

Which is not a terrible thing. Cloud is attractive like this, caught up in that strange place that harbors their mutual affection, somewhere between love and hate.

“Stop looking at me,” says Cloud.

It is a directive that Sephiroth would ignore in normal circumstances, when things are this strained. But he can’t; no sooner have the words left Cloud’s mouth than Sephiroth finds his head turning away, his gaze settling on the far wall.

“Hmm,” Cloud murmurs. “Let’s go upstairs. You go first.”

“It isn’t as if going to bed with you is a hardship, Cloud,” says Sephiroth, because there is really only one place upstairs they can go, and it is far too early for either of them to consider sleeping.

“We haven’t gotten there yet,” says Cloud, from behind him. He waits until Sephiroth has entered the room, facing the bed. “Look at me.”

Sephiroth turns to look at him.

Cloud fiddles with the materia bracer on his arm. “Your will is strong enough to keep you from death, so I don’t think this low-level materia has enough power to really work, if you don’t want it to.” He’s watching Sephiroth carefully. “I can’t….I’m not you. I can’t not give you a way out, even if I –” he looks down at the floor as if he is ashamed.

 _Ever the difference between us, my stormcloud._  

“Even if you want to,” Sephiroth finishes. He hasn’t been told not to, so he crosses the room to Cloud and tips his chin up with two fingers. “I know you want to, Cloud. It’s all right.”

“Of course you’d think that. But I’m not you.” Cloud catches Sephiroth’s wrist in his fingers but doesn’t pull it away. “But stop this if you need to. If it reminds you too much of Jenova.”

If Cloud thinks his low-grade materia can compare to the electric-pulse of Jenova’s clarion voice drowning Sephiroth’s thoughts and saturating his will, then Cloud clearly never heard her like Sephiroth. “Trust me, Cloud, when I say that isn’t possible.”

“Then don’t stop it.” Cloud pushes his hand away. “Take your clothes off.”

Again, it isn’t a command that Sephiroth finds necessarily bothersome. He pulls off his shirt and the loose pair of pants he’s wearing, and he’s already barefoot so there’s not much else to do but take off his underwear. He goes to put his clothes away, and Cloud says, with obvious relish, “Leave them on the floor.”

Sephiroth glances at him. How spiteful. He’s almost impressed. “Making me messy, are you? I’m surprised you haven’t had me drink one of your energy drinks and then throw it away in the regular trash can.”

Cloud doesn’t crack a smile, clearly not amused. “Put your hands behind your back.”

Sephiroth’s limbs obey the command a half-second before his mind can process it, and it’s not much of a lag but the disconnect is jarring all the same. Cloud steps up to him, three inches shorter instead of his usual four since he’s still wearing his boots.

He smiles, but all the warmth has moved up to his eyes, burning like stars. “On your knees,” he says, his tone a quiet parody of Sephiroth’s own. “I want you to beg for forgiveness.”

Sephiroth has knelt before Cloud as a lover, but never like this; this is more like an enemy, but no, that’s not right, is it? A _weaker_ enemy. A subordinate. The floor is hard beneath his knees, his hands clenching into fists at his side. Sephiroth begged only once in his life, when he lay dying on the floor of a Nibelheim reactor; his world narrowed down to nothing but pain and a broken spine.

“Please,” he says, and it’s the same voice it was before -- a  last gasp before drowning. The sound makes his stomach turn. The look he gives Cloud is as vicious as a strike to the heart with his blade. “I beg you.” _Save me. Mother, please._ “Forgive me.”

Cloud mimics Sephiroth’s earlier gesture and tips Sephiroth’s chin up with two fingers. “You hate this. I know you do. Don’t you? Tell me you hate it.”

“I hate it,” Sephiroth says, and the words taste bitter, angry. Like the truth always does, when it’s given unwillingly.

Cloud’s breathing is coming faster. He places those two fingers on Sephiroth’s mouth and taps them gently. “I can tell. Gods,” he swears softly. Sephiroth can see what this is doing to Cloud, how Cloud likes it. In some dark way, Sephiroth is glad.  

“What else shall I do to debase myself for your pleasure?” Sephiroth mocks, smiling. The anger in him is making his head feel clearer, and Cloud’s right – this materia really wouldn’t be enough to stop him if he wanted to break its hold. And oh, he wants to break many things, this hold is just the first.  

_Break its hold, or break Cloud’s trust._

A trap, then. Sephiroth sets his jaw and waits – he has done a number of unpleasant things on the orders of other people. The trick is to go somewhere else in his head, but those places are all locked up tight behind doors for which he no longer has a key.

“Hey. Sephiroth.”

The room is dark enough that Sephiroth can see the faint glow of his own eyes on the floor. “Yes, Cloud?”

Cloud’s fingers drift over the sharp planes of Sephiroth’s face – the cut of his jaw, the bridge of his nose, the slight indentation of his cheekbones, even his ears. “I hated how good it felt.”

Sephiroth can’t say he _hates_ himself, but he certainly hates _this –_ kneeling when he’s not choosing to do so, begging, it turns his stomach when he thinks of how broken he’d been when he’d done it for Jenova.

Though he never knelt for her, did he? He couldn’t have. The fall shattered his knees.

Cloud drags his fingers through the fall of Sephiroth’s heavy hair, not gently, but he knows, of course, that’s how Sephiroth likes it.

“But I’m not interested in making you hate yourself.” Cloud steps away and pulls off his clothes, tossing them carelessly into the corner with his boots. Sephiroth notices Cloud’s half-hard as he climbs on the bed, lying on his back and putting his arms behind his head. “Come here.”

His voice sounds lazy but it’s a lie – the edge is still there, Sephiroth can hear it. He rises gracefully to his feet but stops next to the bed, the desire to follow the command warring with the unspecified nature of it. He makes a face. How tiresome to be so uncertain in one’s attempt at command. “I’m sure my control over you was far more –”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Cloud interrupts. He runs his eyes over Sephiroth’s body, appreciative even though he’s still straddling that fine line between want and anger. “Are you mad at me?”

 _Mad_ seems like such a small and pointless word. “No.”

“You look mad,” Cloud says, then, “If you’re not mad, how are you feeling?”

“Angry.”

Cloud nods, as if he understands the difference. It makes Sephiroth mad when Cloud doesn’t separate the laundry. Anger is something else. Mad makes him give a lecture about what water temperature does to dark clothes. Angry makes him want to burn the world to ashes.  

“Okay, well. I want you to feel good. I want you to make me feel good, too.” Cloud studies him. “Giving up power to you gives me nightmares. But having it over you…and liking it?” Cloud shakes his head. “I don’t want to be that man. I’m not that man. So.”

Sephiroth tilts his head, and his hair slides down and over his face. “The mind control materia is not powerful enough to deal with your irritatingly vague and poorly articulated desires, Cloud.”

Cloud stares up at the ceiling. Sephiroth can see his mouth as he counts to ten. “You’re not fighting back and we both know you could. You’re doing this, you’re allowing this, for me. Yeah?”

Sephiroth doesn’t count to ten, but he takes a moment to regulate the harshness of his breathing to something that sounds closer to normal. “Yes.”

Cloud isn’t fooled, of course. “And you hate that. More than anything. Don’t you?”

“ _Yes,_ damn you. Yes.” Sephiroth growls, and he can see Cloud’s eyes widen, briefly – Sephiroth rarely curses.

“ _Now_ you know what I meant. When I said I did something that I didn’t want to do, and I hated it.”

“Yes, Cloud,” Sephiroth says, because somehow, knowing he’s allowing this for Cloud, for the thing they are slowly building from the wreckage they caused…that is worse than anything. Worse than kneeling. Worse than begging. Love makes him a weaker enemy, and Sephiroth knows it, and he hates it. “Now I know what you meant.”

“I want to fuck you,” says Cloud, gaze steady, voice quiet and strong as his blade. His hand is on his cock, moving slowly up and down. “Do you want that?”

“Yes.” Sephiroth is surprised by the answer. From the look he gets, so is Cloud.

“You’re sure? I said I wanted to fuck _you_ , not that I want you to --”

“I said yes, Cloud,” Sephiroth snaps, in a temper.  

Cloud pats the bed beside him. “Okay. Come here.”

Sephiroth lets the materia guide him so he’s lying next to Cloud.

Cloud pulls him close and kisses him, fingers grabbing at his hair and pulling like he knows Sephiroth likes. “Now you’re going to tell me what you want.”

Before Sephiroth can say the answer – which Cloud will most certainly _not_ want to hear – Cloud adds hastily, “In bed. To feel good. You’re going to tell me what you want, right now, in bed. With me. That will feel good.”

“To strangle you until the light leaves your eyes,” Sephiroth whispers, and it’s the truth.

It also doesn’t faze Cloud, because it never does. He actually laughs and pulls him closer, like his death threat is some kind of foreplay. With them, maybe it is. “You always,” Cloud murmurs against his mouth, “underestimate me. Now tell me, Sephiroth. Tell me what will make you feel good.”

“Suck me,” Sephiroth says, because if he can’t strangle Cloud then that’s the next best alternative.

Cloud tugs hard on Sephiroth’s hair, enough to pull a low moan from him, and kisses him hotly, thoroughly, with enough aggression that Sephiroth’s cock starts to harden. “How about instead, _you_ suck _me_.”

Sephiroth huffs a sound into Cloud’s mouth, body shifting in instant response to what Cloud voices as a clear command. Sephiroth does let himself bite the inside of Cloud’s thigh – and hard – because Cloud likes being bitten, especially in places where it hurts. Sephiroth gets a moan for his efforts and another tug on his hair, and then he slides his mouth over Cloud’s cock and starts sucking him hard and deep and fast.

“Gods,” Cloud pants, and his fingers in Sephiroth’s hair pull in a different way, now, desperate instead of deliberate. “How are you so _good_ at his?”

The materia makes him answer whereas he normally would not. “In the beginning, it was necessary to have a breathing tube when one was submerged in a mako tank. I suppose it significantly reduced my gag reflex.”

Cloud, whose hips were moving as he fucked in and out of Sephiroth’s mouth, goes still. He stares down at Sephiroth, wide eyed – then his face shuts down and somehow Sephiroth knows this show of anger is not directed at him, but on his behalf. “I hope he rots in hell.”

Sephiroth used to believe in hell, back when the idea of nothing and non-existence was a comfort. Now he’s not sure he believes that, and as far as Hojo…he’s the last person Sephiroth wants to think about. Especially now. Sephiroth tells Cloud the same thing he told Genesis, back when they had this conversation, Genesis grudgingly impressed despite being the first person whose cock Sephiroth ever sucked.

“I’m grateful there was at least one benefit.” Sephiroth takes Cloud back in his mouth before Cloud can respond.

Eventually, Cloud pulls at his hair and gasps out a command for him to stop. Sephiroth does, and Cloud sits up and flails for something in the bedside table. He tosses Sephiroth a tube of lubricant. “Do you ever do this yourself?”

“Yes.” _Thinking about you._  

“Do you – use your fingers?”

Sephiroth nods, amused at the sudden increased flush on Cloud’s face. He’s not quite as comfortable with pillow talk as he seems to think.

“Show me,” Cloud murmurs, so Sephiroth slicks his fingers and works himself open for Cloud to see while Cloud watches, mouth slightly parted and hand moving over his own cock. “Does it feel good?”

Sephiroth isn’t used to Cloud being so talkative. He slits his eyes open as he fingers himself, staring at Cloud through the strands of hair. “Yes.”

“Can you take me?”

Sephiroth nods, but doesn’t speak.  

Cloud sucks in a sharp breath, then grabs wildly for the lube. He tosses it at Sephiroth and says huskily, “Get me ready.”

Sephiroth opens the lube again and liberally applies it to his fingers, takes his time getting Cloud’s cock nice and slick for him. It’s wet with pre-come and it doesn’t take much.

Sephiroth shifts, intending to get on his hands and knees or even his back, which is how they usually do this regardless of which of them is the one doing the fucking. But Cloud shakes his head briefly and gives him a sly, wolfish grin. “Huh-uh.” He sprawls on his back and says, “ride me.”

The materia compels Sephiroth to sling a leg over Cloud’s hips and straddle him. As he moves, Cloud braces his hands on Sephiroth’s chest and says, “Have you, uh – done this before?”

“You might have asked before you ordered me to ride you,” Sephiroth informs him, tossing his hair out of his face as he reaches back for Cloud’s cock.

Cloud huffs a noise that might be a laugh, but his eyes go wide again and his cock throbs in Sephiroth’s hand. Sephiroth arches his brows and says, “Hair tossing, really?”

“If you’re not into it, get a haircut,” says Cloud, then adds hastily, “I don’t mean now.”  

“Yes, I’ve done this before.” Sephiroth shifts and presses the tip of Cloud’s cock against his hole, relaxing his muscles as he presses Cloud’s cock inside of him.

“With – who?” Cloud’s fingers are tight on his hips. It’s obvious he’s trying to keep himself from grabbing Sephiroth and pulling him down on his cock, which he could absolutely do – Sephiroth is more than open enough and Cloud’s cock is certainly wet – but he doesn’t, because the materia might compel him to ride Cloud’s dick but so far Cloud hasn’t told him to hurry.

“Angeal,” says Sephiroth, sliding slowly, slowly, down Cloud’s length. It burns, but in a good way – he does like this, the feeling of being stretched out and opened, and the one time he’d made a comment about _should I like this_ , Genesis had blistered his ears and refused to so much as look at his cock for a week.

Cloud’s panting audibly, his legs twitching beneath Sephiroth until finally he growls, “Come on, ride me,” and it’s not much of a victory given the circumstances, but it’s enough to make Sephiroth feel a little bit smug as he starts to move.

He’s done this before, but not often and certainly not recently; it takes a while to find the rhythm to it but eventually he does, and for a moment there’s no talking, no orders, no compulsion beyond the simple physical act of it, the pleasure hovering so close, barely out of reach.

Cloud’s hands move from Sephiroth’s hips, up his chest and to his hair; Sephiroth isn’t surprised when Cloud grabs fistfuls of it, watching with wide, blurry eyes as Sephiroth moves on top of him. It does feel good, Cloud’s cock sliding perfectly against his prostate, over and over, his hips moving just enough to add the necessary friction.

“I – get yourself off. I mean. Do – do this until you – _Gods –_ until you come.”

Sephiroth tilts his head and smirks down at Cloud, rolling his hips deliberately. “Do _what_ until I come _,_ Cloud? The materia isn’t quite sure.”

Cloud rears up and bites him on the chest, hard, making a frustrated sound as he does it. When he pulls back, Sephiroth can see the mark Cloud left, bright red and vicious on his pale, pale skin – and already beginning to fade as it heals.

“Ride my cock until you come,” Cloud says, staring up at him like it’s a challenge, and Sephiroth grabs _his_ hair and kisses him hotly while Cloud wraps his legs around Sephiroth’s waist.

When he’s close, Sephiroth takes himself in hand and works his cock in a similar rhythm to his movements. His head goes back as he gets closer, closer – and he can hear Cloud’s muttered, _oh, Gods,_ but he doesn’t stop, the materia is saying _go go go_ and at this point Sephiroth’s own desires aren’t exactly contrary.

“I want to – hear you, when you come. Make noise,” Cloud gets out, barely in time, and Sephiroth actually swats at him with his free hand in annoyance at Cloud’s irritatingly good timing.

The noise Sephiroth makes is quiet but it’s a low, deep groan and he comes all over Cloud’s stomach and his own, falling half-forward and bracing himself with one hand next to Cloud’s head as he shudders through the aftershocks.

He barely hears Cloud say something that ends in, “…your wing,” and honestly, he’s not sure he would have been to stop it from happening even if Cloud hasn’t asked and the materia hadn’t helped it along. It doesn’t feel good, exactly, when his wing manifests – but it doesn’t hurt, either. It’s more like pressure and a sudden release, but somehow it adds to his orgasm and pulls another low sound from his throat.

He’s dimly aware of Cloud thrusting up a few more times, feels Cloud’s hands grabbing at his hair and his wing, and Cloud’s body goes tense beneath him. The noise Cloud makes is lost somewhere because Sephiroth’s heart is pounding so hard he can hardly hear anything over the sound of it in his ears.  

He has no idea how long it is before Cloud shoves at him and murmurs, “Get off, you’re hot,” and Sephiroth’s body twitches and he’s about to tell Cloud the materia can do what it wants but Sephiroth isn’t getting off for at least a half an hour, a shower, and a lot of water.

“I mean – ugh.” Cloud wriggles beneath him, enticingly enough that maybe Sephiroth could forgo the shower, and Sephiroth realizes that Cloud’s wriggling is due to him unclipping the materia bangle from around his wrist.

Sephiroth climbs off Cloud immediately and collapses next to him, shoving his hair off his face and catching his breath. Both of them are silent for a long time.

Finally, Cloud glances over at him and says, “Did that make you feel good?”

The materia isn’t active so there’s no reason for him to answer if he doesn’t want to. Sephiroth answers anyway. “Yes.”

Cloud nods, hands resting on his chest, which is beginning to rise and fall with deeper, slower breaths. “Good. I’m not into, you know. Forcing you.”

Sephiroth could, if he wanted to, play this so that Cloud never thought about doing anything like this again. But he doesn’t, because even Sephiroth appreciates these quiet moments where the weight of their past, their ever-present sword of Damocles, doesn’t feel quite so close to the throat.

“I could have broken it. We both know that. Besides. You asked me if I wanted it, and I couldn’t lie, remember?” Sephiroth shakes his head and sighs. “You are a capable nemesis, Cloud, but either nix the apologies or leave the villainy up to me, hmm?”

Cloud sits up, as huffy as Sephiroth knew he would be in response to that. “I’m just trying to make it clear that –”

Sephiroth, bored by this conversation already, interrupts him. “Yes, Cloud. I know. And I understand. I have no interest in compelling you into bed with me. The thrill of it is that you come willingly. To have you underneath me after what we’ve been to each other, you don’t think that’s a victory all its own?”

Cloud narrows his eyes. “Forget the planet, Sephiroth. You could sail the cosmos on the size of your ego.”

That startles a surprised laugh and a smile that is, perhaps, the most honest reaction of all.

 

 

 

 


End file.
